Rosenzweig's Metamorphosis

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During the last years of his illness with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Rosenzweig devoted much of his time working on translation, especially of Jewish texts. More specifically, Rosenzweig engaged in translating two major works, Judah HaLevi’s book and a German translation of the Bible. In 1922, Rosenzweig started translating a whole book of poems written by the medieval Jewish poet, Judah HaLevi. Afterwards, he wrote a commentary on his translation. In May of 1925, he received an invitation from Martin Buber (1878 –1965) to collaborate with him on a translation project—a new German translation of the Bible. Rosenzweig agreed to work with Buber to translate the Bible. In their Bible translation project, Rosenzweig and Buber endeavor to convey the …show more content…

The definitive “origin” of all reality lies in the creative word of God. Benjamin goes further and distinguishes between the creation of man and that of other realities. That is to say, according to the second story of creation [in Genesis 2], which “tells of the breathing of God’s breath into a man, also reports that he was made from earth” (41). Whereas the creation of the other, nonhuman realities is summed up in the phrase, “Let there be and he named” (41). Therefore, language for Benjamin is not just creative, but also a finished creation, words as well as names (41). In a mathematical formula: “the language of words is the language of names” (Zathureczky 62). A special case can be found in human language, by which man can communicate with a mental being that is the language of words. Man’s mental being can be communicated through naming things. Benjamin’s On Language as Such and on the Language of Man introduces a theological theory of language. That is, “the origin of all created life is grounded in the Word of God” (Smerick 49). He argues that “every

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